Knowing: Bad Astrophysicist

[01101001]

If you've seen it, review, please, the movie Knowing (IMDB page (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/)) . The protagonist, played by Nicolas Cage, is an MIT astrophysicist -- who gets into numerology as a predictor of bad events.

So, I'm not eager to see it, but I'm happy to hear people tear it apart. Several reviews I've seen/heard so far have been pretty rough on it, so that's good.

[Gillianren]

Graham doesn't want to see it, and he likes the National Treasure movies! I think I'd almost rather see Angels and Demons.

[KaiYeves]

I LOVE National Treasure, but I'm the sort of person who likes movies for plot, not actors, so I don't think I'll be seeing this.

[stu]

This looks bad ... but I don't understand why an astrophysicist is necessary to be the one to decode those numbers.

[LotusExcelle]

I'm a Proyas fan (See The Crow, Dark City for a flash of brilliance). But I think Cage is... well at the very least not worth the movies he's in. I may see it on DVD.

[01101001]

LA Times: 'Knowing' is No. 1 at box office. Who knew? (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-fi-cotown-boxoffice23-2009mar23,1,7317200.story)


Nicolas Cage -- with a timely assist from college hoops -- powered sci-fi action picture "Knowing" to the top of the weekend box office with an estimated $24.8-million haul.

Bah.

[Van Rijn]

Give it a week. Most of the reviews I've seen are very negative. I doubt it has staying power.

[Gillianren]

It's not exactly as though March is prime movie release time, either.

[geonuc]

25% on the Tomatometer:

"Critics' Consensus: It's weighted down by its absurd plot and over-seriousness."

ETA: 14% for the 'top critics'.

[Van Rijn]

That's a little better than the Day the Earth Stood Still remake (another bad movie) . . . but not much.

[vonmazur]

Guys: I had a chance to watch this jewel on my Sat Dish.....I am surprised that no one here has pointed out that this an example of the hoariest cliche in Sci Fi....All that improbable baloney just see "Adam and Eve" headed for the "Ygdrassil", and I wonder, one set of Rabbits turned loose like that, in 2 years the planet is a mass of rabbits---didn't the Aliens (wearing the Sting suit from Dune) have any predators to plant there??? It was totally over hyped and not worth the trouble.....

What was in the cockpit of the airliner that blew up twice?? Who is their aviation advisor??

Why do they keep remaking the same episode of Twilight Zone....???

Dale in B'ham

[tdvance]

Graham doesn't want to see it, and he likes the National Treasure movies! I think I'd almost rather see Angels and Demons.

Angels and Demons was Bad Science and Bad Religion but still an entertaining movie.

[Dgennero]

I just saw that concoction for free in the library.
Oh dear - the movie attempted to explain ETis with religion and vice versa - Daeniken would like it.
The important philosophical topic of determinism vs. non-determinism was touched but badly handled in the main character's lecture - you can always use emotional problems of a character as an excuse to not duly address a difficult topic.
And then the Woo-woo (I call it a Plait alert):
They depicted the solar system on a computer screen with the sun and planets to scale but not their distances which made it look possible that a huge solar flare/solar event could cause overwhelming destruction - massive blast wave and all.
It couldn't - maybe a close by GRB could (again, fire yes, but without a blast wave).
Still, some good eye candy towards the end - but this movie IMO did an unsuccessful attempt at uniting science and religion and overall has preaching overtones.
The end is kitsch-as-kitsch-can, must be inspired by those sect-pamphlets that various zealots distribute, with a dollop of teletubbyland - and the rabbits the kids brought are probably at the top of the food chain, so expect more teletubby scenery in the future.
"Man merkt die Absicht und ist verstimmt" (Goethe). ("One sees the intention and is angered").

[zenbudda]

when is the last time the masses wanted fact over truth? lol.

[HotLap]

Watched the dvd, not much to like here. Some drama early on and as a frequent flyer - didn't really enjoy the graphic nature of the plane crash (would have been pulverized anyway - not left with folks hanging out of their seats, etc.) but the ending was really a shame...could see it coming a mile off - the omnipresent aliens saving the day for us misguided earthlings again...

[Superluminal]

The scene late in the movie where Cage talks about superflares and G type stars brought back a memory. IIRC, several years ago I read about a G type main sequence star that suddenly brightened by about 2 mag. and then returned to normal after a few hours. But, I can't find anything like that on the internet. Anyone here ever hear about such an observation? Or maybe its just a bad memory.

[matthewota]

It was a depressing movie. Too dark. I give it a thumbs down. Two hours of same old SF cliches.

[Weakly Interacting MP]

The scene late in the movie where Cage talks about superflares and G type stars brought back a memory. IIRC, several years ago I read about a G type main sequence star that suddenly brightened by about 2 mag. and then returned to normal after a few hours. But, I can't find anything like that on the internet. Anyone here ever hear about such an observation? Or maybe its just a bad memory.


Maybe you're talking about this GALEX discovery?

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=3227

If not, try googling "superflare"

[rommel543]

It was my understanding that something like this would be probable from our Star as it's not spinning/churning fast enough to create the magnetic loops required to cause such a massive solar flare. Does it not require a fast churning to develop a super flare such as portrayed in the movie?

[Trust No 1]

I heard that some of the movie was filmed in Melbourne, so there is an Australian connection.

[CJSF]

I watched this movie over the weekend. Bad as it was, scientifically, I liked it more than I thought I would. I would point out that they did clearly show multiple ships both leaving Earth and landing on the other planet. The implication being that more than 2 kids and 2 bunnies were deposited there. For all we know, some ships might have had a bunch of plants, some might have a bunch of animals, and some might have a bunch of people. Even if all ships had 2 people and 2 animals (of complimentary genders), we don't know how many ships there were.

I also don't think it was fundamentally important that Cage's character was an astrophysicist. His knowledge in that area certainly doesn't change anything.

The hardest thing for me to swallow, within the bounds of the film, was why give this little girl predictions of select disasters coming over 50 years? It served no purpose other than some horrible imagery of the plane crash and subway mayhem. Why not just make a cryptic final prediction?

I will also note that this movie should have been rated R, in my opinion. Even if somewhat inaccurate, the plane crash and subway crash scenes were very traumatic and vivid. I still feel uncomfortable thinking about them.

CJSF

[Gillianren]

Didn't you know? The MPAA thinks violence isn't all that damaging to young psyches.

[HenrikOlsen]

But any hint of the s-thing and they go nonononono!

[publiusr]

That's a point. Then too, where your teenage daughter can watch a bunch of Paris Hilton wannabes and emulate their behavior, it is harder for your young son to be Gork, who ate New York. The sad fact is that life-forms learned how to eat-- how to kill--before they learned how to make love. If someone "says your money or your life" (yes, I'm thinking it over), that hostility is very honest.

It reminds me of the line from Zardoz where an immortal waiting to be punished quits making false explanations, and finally admits "I hate you all." One of his judge/fellows is impressed and speaks into his vote-ring the words "absolute aquittal" finding the honesty refreshing...

If someone says they love you--do you really know what they want? Sometimes it is easy be be lost in the ...larger personality of another. Perhaps that goes to explain some of the ratings. Who can say?

[Gillianren]

If someone says they love you--do you really know what they want? Sometimes it is easy be be lost in the ...larger personality of another. Perhaps that goes to explain some of the ratings. Who can say?

Bluntly, no. I can say. The fact is, the MPAA ratings board is well known to be older people, almost none of whom have school-aged children despite the MPAA's constant statements that you have to in order to make the ratings board. Heck, the whole idea of a ratings system in the first place was created because people were upset with raciness in movies. It doesn't take nudity or graphic content to make the MPAA give it a higher rating. It really takes very little research to find out this sort of thing. If you want to get the history, look up "League of Decency," "Joe Breen," or "William H. Hays."

[Roger E. Moore]

In case anyone is going to rent this...

1. The superflare section is minimal. It happens at the end and Earth burns up. That's it. Nothing else. FOOP the end. They don't go into any detail, just FOOP the end.
2. The big cryptographic mystery is stupid. It involves psychic suicidal loners and time capsules and aliens abducting random children and taking them to the TeleTubby Planet and GPS mixed with the Christian calendar and disasters that are somehow predicted against all logic and the end of the world and painting on the bottom of your bed and maybe telepathy. It makes no sense at all and it's even worse than you imagine. It's even worse than you CAN imagine.
3. The part where the aircraft crashes is actually pretty cool, although I can't imagine how anyone survived it. That part was stupid. Still, the crash was awesome, so you get maybe 10 seconds of awesome out of the whole movie. Just look for that part on YouTube, and you can skip the movie. Love that jet crash. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDqfmEd4fQ8
4. Nicholas Cage is too awesome to waste on crap movies like this. Guess he has to pay bills, too, but he is just wasted here.